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On Moving and Leaping

It's taken me two whole months to actually sit down and write about our family's move 4,000 miles from home here in Alaska. Partly because I've been terribly busy organizing our move, getting our home ready, selling things off, packing, and then just living life as a wife, mom, and friend, and partly because I haven't known what to say or how to explain it.

But it's actually really simple if you get right down to it.

God told us we needed to move to North Carolina.

I imagine I'll go into that more later on. It's all so beautifully personal and complex though.

We prayed about it for three whole years, eventually knowing it would happen.

Then we said yes in May once we had confirmation as a couple the timing was right.

We then listed our house two weeks later, after prepping all winter just in case we should be selling it come summertime.

One day later it sold.

One. Day.

That was six weeks ago.

It's been the fastest six weeks of our lives.

We're shocked. Sad. Excited. Thrilled to be walking into the unknown knowing the Lord is our stay. And a bazillion other things. This move conjures up so many emotions.

For three years I've been asking God if He is really wanting us to leave.

Why would we leave? I don't want to leave.It'd be nuts to leave our parents, our church, these amazing friends, this amazing place. Plus this: THERE ARE 10 OF US TO MOVE.

But slowly, He changed our hearts to match His on the matter. And now we can't imagine not leaving even though we have no idea what we're stepping into.

Jeremy was born and raised here, and has never lived anywhere else in his 40 years.

I moved to Alaska as a kid from Washington state, and have lived here 30 years.

This is all our kids have ever known.

This is HOME.

But as the years have gone by, we've loosened our grip on our earthly home, as hard as that is. And we've begun to embrace our future home, the unshakeable kingdom of our Lord and King, Jesus.

This verse has impacted us deeply. In fact, this is the very verse that solidified it for both Jeremy and I, completely separate of each other.

The cities and places we live are temporary. But what isn't fading away is God's kingdom. Our family is being called away from our current place because God has a mission for us, but we don't yet know what that will look like, or what exactly He'll have us doing.

As Jeremy said right as we made our final decision, "I'm not willing to sit back, comfortable right here, if God has a plan for us there to help lead others into His kingdom."

People get it when you say, "Hey, guess what? We've moving to Africa as missionaries!"

No one balks. No one questions. Well, of course they do, but only on the internet, right? Did I just say that?

We know what this means, and we're familiar with how God calls in this way.

We get squirmy when a calling is more ambiguous.

We feel a bit (a lot) like Abraham gathering all his people up, and blindly going where God was leading him, not knowing what the future holds.

We do know one thing amidst the massive amount of unknowns right now, and that is that we serve a trustworthy Savior who will continue to lead and guide and hold us as we walk toward Him all the way to North Carolina and her hot, sticky summers.

And so we close this twelve year-long chapter in this glorious spot in this beloved home in just two weeks.

We cry. We shake our heads in disbelief. We rejoice. We pray. And then we go.

8 comments on "On Moving and Leaping"

Whew, this brings back lots of emotions and memories. Our first "leap" was away from our families and our life-long homes to an unknown Bible camp in an unfamiliar place in Minnesota to do a totally undefined job with no promised support or means of producing income. And the Lord gave us the best years of our lives there! Our next "leap" was from Minnesota to Alaska. Although the finances were secured by a good job, everything else was strange and unknown. Again, the Lord gave us many beautiful years of wonderful Alaska living! And our third "leap" was leaving Alaska, living in two separate houses in Michigan so I could stay with my ailing mother. And again, the Lord was with us and encouraged us in this move. Beneath the tears, the anxiety, the exhaustion, the lonesomeness, the doubts, physical challenges, emotional upheaval, negative comments and criticism...the deep peace that only God can give! "Let the peace of God UMPIRE in your heart!" Col. 3:15

Ha...of course. I finished my newsletter last night and am practically reading (almost) the same thing here, because Great Minds and such. :) I'll send it out tonight and you can laugh, too. Love you so much, friend. Proud of you guys.

The Lord moved my family and me to North Caroline from FLorida last year. The summers are a little sticky, but the falls and springs are beautiful! I hope my family of 6 run into your family of 10 sometime very soon!

This was so encouraging to read. While we don't feel 'called' to a specific place, we feel the urge to leave where we lived for so long and move, but without a secure job or even knowing exactly where, just which direction to go. We're still praying for opening and closing doors to make the path more clear. We're a family of 7 so uprooting our kids is tough, from family and friends. I'd like more confirmation that we really should do this but in my spirit it seems like that's what we're going to do!